Isabella needed nothing further. She stood next to the bike with her arms in the air. I asked Paulina, “You know how to drive?”
“Yes,” she said matter-of-factly.
I stepped off the bike and held it by the bar, motioning for her to ride. She smiled, stepped out of the truck, and straddled the bike, hiking up her skirt and then tucking it tightly beneath her thighs so the wind didn’t pull a Marilyn Monroe on her. I lifted Isabella up and she sat on the indentation between the tank and the seat. I gave my Costas to Paulina and buckled my helmet on Isabella, pulling the shield down over her eyes to keep the bugs out.
Paulo drove the speed limit while Paulina followed us. Isabella’s smile covered the entire inside of the helmet and Paulina’s spread nearly as wide. I sat up front in the truck with Paulo—in the cab with no air-conditioning. Where it was a hundred and twenty degrees if it was anything. My sweat—trickling down my face, neck, back, and calves—stuck me to the seat like honey while Paulo, seemingly unfazed, drove in relative comfort.
Halfway home, he pulled up near a roadside store advertising cell phones and prepaid cards. He motioned for me to follow. I did. When we reached the counter, he bought a new prepaid card for his own phone and then pointed at the phones in the counter. “You buy?”
He was right. A good idea. Paulo helped me negotiate with the man for a new phone and a calling card. After we’d paid, he dialed my number in his phone and watched as my phone rang. Knowing he could now get in touch with me, he nodded and waved me onward. “Vámonos.”
Paulina was right. If you needed something done, Paulo was your man.
Back in the truck, the heat returned and stuck my clothing to my skin beneath a layer of sweat. Paulo was growing more comfortable with me so every few minutes, he’d point through the windshield at something he wanted me to see or know or understand. And while I didn’t understand a word he said as he unconsciously rattled off in Spanish, I do know that the words he spoke were beautiful. Tender. Paulo was attempting to share his world with me.
Over the next thirty minutes, I kept an eye on the girls in the rearview, listened to Paulo, nodded as if I understood completely, and lost five pounds in sweat.
It was a great conversation.
* * *
After dinner, I used my new phone to call Colin’s house line. He picked up after the first ring. I said, “Ronnie?” and hung up.
Colin got a new SIM card every couple of days and nobody ever knew the number—because it wasn’t intended for incoming calls. If I needed to talk with him, I called his house number and said the name of any president and hung up. That left him to call the number on his caller ID. Which he did. We’d had a decade’s worth of practice. Seconds later, my phone rang and I answered. “How you guys getting along?”
“Better.” His voice sounded different. Even some levity. He also spoke softly, which led me to believe that someone was sleeping nearby. He was almost whispering. “Small progress, but it’s progress. Any luck?”
“Some.” I backed up and told him about León. About Isabella, Paulo, the coffee plantation, his truck, and then the beach resort. He was quiet when I finished.
He said, “Any idea what’s next?”
“Tomorrow I thought I’d get on the bike and ride up and down the coast. Surfers are particular about their waves so it shouldn’t be too tough. Find good waves and I should find some surfers. Provided he’s still with them.”
“You think he’s not?”
“I think Zaul will be of use to these guys as long as he has money. He’s lost his transportation and I’d bet he’s running low on money, so I’m guessing his usefulness is running out—if it hasn’t already.”
Colin mumbled in agreement. I tried to change the subject. “Any sign of Shelly?”
“She’s been to see Maria every day. The reconstruction of her face was nothing short of miraculous. She stops in on her way home.”
That sounded strange because Colin’s house wasn’t on Shelly’s way home. My silence told Colin I was trying to figure this out. He picked up on it. “She’s…spending some time with an orthopedist from the hospital. When I asked about him, she said, ‘He’s a safe bet.’ He’s got a place down on the canal.”
I did not see that one coming. “I hope she’s happy.”
Colin cleared his throat. “He heard she’d called off the wedding and showed up at her work. Took her to dinner. All the nurses say she seems happier.”
“I hope she is.”
“She looks different. Peaceful.”
I could hear a noise in the background. I was scratching my head when Colin said, “Hold on. Somebody wants to talk to you.”
He handed her the phone. Maria sounded sleepy. Her words sounded thick, like she’d just come from the dentist and the Novocain had yet to wear off. “Hey, Uncle Charlie. I miss you.”
“I miss you, pretty girl. How you feeling?”
“Okay. It hurts less. You find Zaul?”
“Not yet, but I’m looking. He was always pretty good at hide-and-go-seek.”
She chuckled. “I remember. Uncle Charlie?”
“Yeah, baby girl.”
“When you find him, hug him for me. We all miss him. Mom cries most of the time now.”
I swallowed hard. “You heal up. I’ll see you soon.”
“You bring me something?”
“You bet.”
She handed the phone back to her dad. Colin and I sat in silence. After a minute, I broke it. “That one’s special.”
He sniffled. Blew his nose. “I been thinking a lot lately and I can’t figure something.”
“What’s that?”
“Why was one like her given to someone like me?”
It was a good question, and I’d been wrestling with many of the same emotions. I had no answer for him. “I’ll call when I know more.”
I hung up, lay on my bed, and listened to the night. People talked in hushed tones in their homes around us. Dogs barked. Pigs grunted. A horse neighed in one direction and a noisy cat screeched in another. Every few moments, I heard a thud on the ground outside. Finally, I heard one on the tin roof of the chicken coop, which, when it landed, sounded like a bomb going off above my head and levitated me about four feet above the bed. I walked outside in the moonlight and stared up into the tree. A monkey was pulling on the mangoes and dropping them to the ground where several dogs had gathered. When I walked beneath the tree, he sat up straight, staring down at me. I picked through the mangoes, finding one that felt ripe, and washed it in the pila. After washing Paulina’s knife, I peeled it, placed the slices on my tongue, and let the taste swirl around, filling me. Between the aroma, the taste, the juice, the texture, it was an all-encompassing experience.
That mango was a mirror image of my last few days. Once beautiful, placed on display for all the world to see, it had been ripped from its perch, thrown to the ground, rolled in manure and squalor, and left to rot. While that might have bruised it and soiled its skin, it didn’t change its nature or what it freely offered, for once I peeled it back, an inexplicable sweetness was waiting to be discovered and tasted and consumed. There was just one catch—you had to be willing to get your hands dirty. Even sticky. To pick through it. Bathe it. Peel it back. And for so much of my life I had not.
The second train of thought coursing through my mind was a quiet nagging. Whether I found Zaul or not, what was I going to do? At some point, this search would end, and when it did, where would I go? What would I do? Who, if anyone, would I do it with? Hack was dead. Bimini held nothing for me. Miami had never been my home. While I’d been born there and while I still owned a house, Jacksonville wasn’t my home. I felt no tug anywhere in the States. No one was expecting me. No one was waiting by the phone. If I didn’t show up somewhere, no one would know or care.